"For us, parental notification is not about abortion," Nashif said. "Parents have a right to know about their children's lives up to a certain age. Abortion is the exception. Most parents are shocked that this is not already the law."

Unfortunately, the Oregonian story demonstrated Nashif was lying only later in the story, instead of right next to it. You had to go to the jump and read more. It's the sort of thing you wish newspapers could write: "Nashif's assertion is incorrect. Oregon law allows 15-17 year olds to make their own medical decisions, and this measure would except abortion from those provisions."

This measure would make abortion the exception in how we treat 15-17 year olds. All other medical procedures of 15-17 year olds could be done without parental notification.

If a stepfather is sexually abusing a 16 year-old who subsequently gets pregnant, what constitutes "notification"?

If a kick in the groin counts, I will support this measure.

Is anyone else monumentally frightened? Once again, a sea of bad policy that will sound good at worst or confusing at best to the average Oregon voter. A couple of decent measures are floating around, so we can't just band together and create a JUST SAY NO! campaign (not my idea, so compliments to the minds who thought of it in '04, when the Tillamook 50/50 was that one decent measure).

I know that I will be spreading the word, "If you just don't know, vote no."

Think of all the effort that was put behind proactively putting progressive initiatives on the ballot... This is where it got us --- defending once more.

why the heck does our oregon include initiative 57 in their list of bad measures? 57 seems like a no brainer, and very progressive. it simply prohibits eminent domain when the end result is transfer of property from one private party to another. it still allows it for all public uses, and has exceptions for health and safety issues, transportation and utility services, and even allows the government to hold the property and lease it to a third party.

the our oregon site just says "What Measure Does: Prohibits public body from condemning private property. Statutory amendment", which seems misleading in that it leaves out crucial information.

or am i being dense and missing something?

As someone who worked for the Legislature on M 37 related issues I am extremely wary of the "Emminent Domain" petition because its sponsored by Ross Day and his crew. I am worried more about how they'll argue the additional consequences of this measure and how it will be interepreted. The folks behind this hardly have a stellar record when it comes to writing easy to enact laws.

That being said, my guess is that it passes with 70% or more of the more because it is generally a good principle and given that DPO's own executive committee didn't oppose it I can't see those on our side spending a lot of time or $ fighting this one when TABOR, Notification, Federal Substitution and the like are likely to be on the ballot and are each independently much worse than about the mot extreme worst cause scenario of this one.

Without having thoroughly studied initiative 57, I think it's an important matter and the fact that it is a statutory, versus constitutional amendment means it can be "tweaked" later if necessary by the Legislature. The downside is it is part of a bundle of ballot measures being put forward all across the country by predominantly one individual - a radical libertarian named Howard Rich. In some states, the eminent domain portion of the initiatives is actually weak, though it is the primary focus for advertising purposes, while the predominant purpose of the measures is to adopt in other states a version of Oregon's Measure 37 (which I also support, even though I'm opposed to Howard Rich's other measures - TABOR and term limits).

Our Oregon's decisions on which measures to support or oppose are largely, in my opinion, based on their observations as to the means by which the measures are placed on the ballot and who is backing them. I think those matters are also very important because they tell you something about the motives behind the measures. For certain, many of the "bad" initiatives are not local grassroots issues but were written and funded from out-of-state. But if you support a measure then vote for it even if you don't like the people who funded or backed it. For example, a lot of people here will likely support Sizemore's insurance measure even though they don't like anything else he's ever done.

Well, let's presume that local government wants to create a mixed-use, mixed-income development in an abandoned area. They can get 95% of the property owners to sell, but two property owners won't sell, and are central to the proposal. Local government isn't in the business of property development, but they can't make the development happen, and the neighborhood remains messed up because a comprehensive overhaul isn't possible.

That's why I-57 is not good policy. It's not a very common situation, and is more OIA wanting to beat their chests, but it's still bad policy that hinders government from acting in the public good. It's being pushed by the same people who want government to run like a business, but continue to destroy its ability to do so.

ok, thanks for the further clarification on the politics behind this. a couple questions:

1) isn't this issue being solved by ballot measure precisely because the government failed to deal with it when the state senate voted down nearly the same bill last session?

2) Jeff, when you say "The ability by local governments to condemn land is actually generally pretty good", do you mean it's good for them to have this ability, or that they usually use this ability for good purposes? either way, the only real difference to me appears to be that the developers will have to lease the land, rather than own it, which actually seems like a really good idea for revenue purposes.

3) what solution would you prefer?

I think it is important to recognize that M37 does not prevent "government" from using eminent domain to take private property and transfer ownership to a developer. A state constitutional amendment would be required to do that. What it does is transfer that authority from local jurisdictions to the state legislature.

This is not a theoretical distinction. In other states where these restrictions on local use of eminent domain have been adopted, the legislature has approved use of eminent domain for projects it thought were important.

jeff,

but i don't see how that is being thrown out here. here's the text of the initiative (PDF warning), there is a clear exception for health and safety, and if that is not enough, there is an exception that allows the government to condemn the land through eminent domain, and then lease it out.

so the way i see it, the issue is not "government can't do this", but "government can't do this if it is going to give the spoils to a private party".

let me know if i am i missing something here...

Actually, here's the text, that previous link leads you to the ballot title and summary.

Skimming it, it appears that there's an interesting bit in the measure -- that the government has to be totally correct (well, not underestimate) in the appraisal when it condemns property, or it's stuck paying property owners for legal fees. That is, the government is going to be forced to over-appraise people's properties to avoid legal costs, and of course it doesn't get legal costs when it's proven right. Again, this cripples smaller governments who can't afford legal fees, which is exactly what OIA wants. Smaller local governments will be threatened against doing anything for the common good. OIA, beating up on local control once again.

I knew there was a reason OIA would put so many resources into passing this. Because the actual sense of the measure: if at the time of condemnation the government intends to give it to a private owner, they can't. But, if the government just takes it, and then decides later to give it to a private owner, they can.

Christy is right on. For months on Blue Oegon I have been reading positive reports on progressive initiatives. Now look what the outcome is likely to be. Just a bunch of scary, bad initiatives that would do further harm to Oregon. As if not enough harm has already been done by 5, 11, 47, 50, 36, 37, etc. Wise up progressives! Direct democracy sucks. Let's be the first state to dump the initiative and referendum process. That would be progressive.

I am all for the ability of Oregonians to place iniatives on the ballot -- direct democracy at its best! However, the aggressive nature of these paid petitioners has become a nuisance.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot ban companies from paying petitioners to collect signatures saying it violates the free speech rights of these companies. However, laws are on the books that ban these companies from basing the pay these petitoners receive on the number of signatures they collect.

I've made it a point of asking petitioners who approach me how much they are being paid and whether or not their pay is based on the number of signatures they collect. Most will give you an honest reply and tell you that they receive a base pay, but they are paid big bonusses by the companies when they maintain a certain level of signatures; and, they are fired when they do not deliver a certain number of signatures per day.

This type of aggressive petitioning leads to fraud. Most of these petitioners are barely out of high school, and the temptation to forge signatures is high given their maturity level. I see most of these kids as victims baited by the ballot initiative mills not criminals.

Regardless, something has to be done to reform our ballot initiative system in Oregon to make it less prone to fraud and less annoying to those of us mobbed by petitioners walking down the street.

I have come to the conclusion that the TABOR measure is more about land use than taxes (not that the local puppets of New York Libertarian Howard Rich, who is funding TABOR measures all over the country, realize that). Please read my post on this at Preemptive Karma. This is about the sale of public lands and the massive shrinking of government.

How is it "progressive" to dump the peoples right of redress through the direct initiative process, and turn over lawmaking entirely to a legislature that does the bidding of special interests???

Just vote NO on everything and we wll be just fine.